A large section of dopers is using internet to purchase recreational drugs, regardless of the closure of Silk Road previous year, says a new research.
Silk Road was by far the most notorious online marketplace to sell and purchase illegal products, which also included a wide range of unauthorized narcotics. Last year, Federal Bureau of Investigation, in a raid, closed down its website and later quoted it as the “the most sophisticated and extensive criminal marketplace on the internet”. Meanwhile, Silk Road’s founder and operator Ross Ulbricht also received a lifetime in prison, a judgement that was meant to send shivers throughout the rest of the illegal drug marketplaces.
But according to the results of Global Drug Survey 2015, the tactic seems to have been repelled by 180-degrees. Their report, derived from an online survey of more than 100,000 individuals across the globe, indicates that there has been an increase in the number of dopers that buy drugs from the underground websites.
The darknet promised more benefits to drug abusers than the traditional “face-to-face” deals. According to the survey results, people believed that they were exposed to violence, adulterated drugs, higher rates and many other ill-factors when dealing on streets. The online marketplaces like Silk Road dramatically reduced such worries, with results showing that physical violence was only 1% with the darknet, compared with 7% on the traditional markets.
On being asked whether they have purchased drugs from the darknet within last 12 months, a majority of respondents responded with a Yes. The users involved in these purchases mostly belonged to the first-world nations, such as the US, the UK, the Scandinavian countries, Australia, Canada, and others.
The drugs that were bought the maximum through the darknet included MDMA Powder, followed by LSD, MDMA Pills, three types of Cannabis, Cocaine, and others.
You can read the entire report here.